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I still have no idea why Kris and I are perusing through a child-packed room of arcade games, taking turns playing for paper tickets, making pointless small talk and acting as if we don’t have a fucked up past together. If this is his way of making up for what he did, he’s failing. I’m not even sure why I’m still here. I should have called Cat to come rescue me an hour ago. He doesn’t deserve to hang out with me. He doesn’t deserve to be my friend. And he sure as hell doesn’t deserve to look so freaking hot tonight.
We stop in front of another set of ATM-looking machines, only these count the tickets through some slot that sucks them up like the Cookie Monster. Kris grabs all the tickets from his pockets, handing half of them to me.
“If only we were kids right now,” I say, as I stare at our pile of a few hundred tickets.
“Good idea,” he says, taking the tickets from my hands and folding them into one massive stack.
“I had an idea?” I ask.
He smiles and glances around the room, his eyes landing on a young boy with beat up shoes and jeans that are a couple inches too short. The boy’s guardian, an elderly man, stands next to him as he plays a game of Skeeball. Kris takes off toward them and I follow lamely, wondering if he’s going to do what I think he might do.
“Excuse me,” he says, getting the boys attention. He squats down so that he’s eye level with the child and holds out our stack of tickets. “My friend and I are a little too old for tickets so we were wondering if you wouldn’t mind taking them for us?”
The boy’s eyes almost burst out of his skull and he takes the tickets before Kris has a chance to change his mind. “Thank you!” he squeaks, beaming from ear to ear.
Kris winks at him and stands back up. My heart turns to goo at the little boy’s excitement. The older man with him pats Kris on the back in a proud grandfatherly way.
“That was cool of you,” I say as we walk back toward the adult section. My eyes linger on his now empty back pockets and they cling to his ass so tightly it’s a miracle so many tickets ever fit in there in the first place.
Kris stops suddenly and I stop too, only not before slamming into his backside. “Shit,” he mumbles under his breath, spinning on his heel and grabbing my elbows in his hands. “Go,” he says, pushing me as his toes press my feet backward. “Go, go go.”
“What? Why?” I ask as I trip over myself in our retreat.
“Just act casual,” he says. He shoves me behind a massive spin the wheel game, pressing me into the wall. He’s so close I can smell the beer on his breath. I stare at his chest, my heart racing as he looks over his shoulder and into the crowd of innocent people. He’s acting as if a masked shooter just barged in the place, but I don’t hear anyone freaking out.
Plus, if a shooter really was on the loose, I doubt Kris would take a bullet for me, so pushing me into a corner makes no sense.
Until I hear her voice.
“Bringing new girls to our old hangout, huh?” I hear a snort, and then, “That’s romantic.”
Kris rolls his eyes and lets go of my arms, slowly turning around to face the woman. “I’m here with my employees, so you can move the hell along and leave us alone, thanks.”
Kris’s ex-girlfriend is here, and she sounds like a total bitch. This is my luck. I bet she would look a thousand times better in my little black dress than I would after a week of fasting and Insanity workouts. Now that the alcohol has worn off, I am out of liquid courage but I venture to peek around Kris’s shoulder anyway. I already know she’s a super model, so I can’t possibly lose too much self-esteem getting a look at her.
My jaw drops. The woman in front of us, with her hands on her hips as she and Kris say less than nice things to each other, is not a super model. She’s short and a little chunky around the midsection. She wears white cut off jean shorts that leave absolutely nothing to the imagination and a faded grey tank top. A tattoo of a dragon starts at her foot and snakes up her entire leg, disappearing behind the pockets of her shorts. A few dozen wavy-lined and faded tattoos litter her other leg.
On the positive side, she has massive boobs.
“Uh, boss?” I say, poking my head into their conversation. “I’m gonna head back to the group.” As fascinating as it is seeing him get a verbal lashing from a girl who looks like she’s been around the block a few times, I am so over being around Kris Payne. Plus I have to pee. And maybe cry a little.
“Your employee, huh?” the woman says, shoving him in the arm. “Do all your employees dress like a slut? You own a strip club or something?”
“Whoa,” I say when Kris doesn’t say anything to stick up for me. “I’m not a part of this little drama fest you have going on, so I’ll thank you not to insult me as if you aren’t a piece of white trash yourself.”
In the shocked silence that follows, I grab my shoes from him and begin to walk away. The woman’s annoying voice lashes out again and this time I can’t ignore it.
“Where’s her brother, Kris?”
My chest goes cold as I turn to face her, my knees going wobbly even without wearing my heels. What does this woman know about my brother? She eyes me and I hate that my face just showed emotion. She continues, motioning with her hands to the vast room around us. “Well where is he? Did you steal her brother too?”
I glance at Kris, hoping for some kind of explanation but a pained expression is all he flashes at me before holding up his hand to her. “Shut the hell up, Lucy.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, Kristofer Payne! You don’t get to tell me that anymore.”
“Don’t act like I was the monster here,” he says as he leans closer to her, his voice seething and raw. Now I can’t walk away. Now I have to know what they’re talking about.
“How do you know about my brother?” The last word threatens to make me crack, but I stay strong. She gives me this open-mouthed stare of ignorance, lifting her eyebrows at what she obviously considers a stupid question.
